San Antonio weighs annexation plan

[Hamilton]

Originally Posted by Paul in S.A TX

For example, in the 2000 census, S.A.'s city proper population stood at 1.2 million within 300 square miles, the city is actually more dense than its strong annexation plans may suggest.

Where I grew up in Northern NJ, we called places with twice that density "suburbs."

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

good for them, most cities should do it.

totally agree. this is a serious problem for greater cleveland for example. too many tiny suburban fiefdoms and way, way too much wasteful and expensive duplication of services.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Hamilton

Where I grew up in Northern NJ, we called places with twice that density "suburbs."

SA is denser that it seems since much of the city limits is empty and undeveloped.

[mhays]

It also seems to max out in the low teens by census tract.

[kcexpress69]

I'm sure St. Louis probably regrets voting to separate themselves from St. Louis County prior to 1900. I can only imagine how that could have changed things.

[fflint]

Originally Posted by Crawford

If SF annexed Daly City, South SF and the like, would it be richer? Almost certainly no.

The answer is less clear than you think. The population certainly wouldn't be wealthier, but revenue might actually increase. When it comes to taxation in California, thanks to Proposition 13, residential uses are a cypher but commercial uses generate revenue. Daly City includes lots of working class families and very little by way of commercial uses, so that would be a drag, but South San Francisco's massive biotech cluster would likely bring in a tremendous amount of rax revenue that might just make the amalgamated city "richer." SSF has only something like 50,000 residents and probably as many high-paying jobs.

Anyway, as to San Antonio annexation, "growth management" isn't really plausible within the Texan context. The areas in question already house 200,000 people and will almost certainly continue to see poorly-planned suburban sprawl regardless of jurisdiction. So what we're left with is the question of whether annexation can benefit San Antonio, e.g. prevent a rival jurisdiction from becoming a threat to the primary city like Irving is to Dallas. The answer seems to be yes. If I were in charge of San Antonio, assuming the long-term advantages outweigh any short-term and long-term disadvantages, I'd probably go for annexation.

[10023]

Good idea. Keeping suburban areas under the same political control is generally a positive for regional planning purposes.

As for population, everyone here knows it's metro populations that matter. San Antonio will not be the 5th largest city in the US, not even close.

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by Hill Country

I know the haters are going to complain about sprawl. But San Antonio is very fortunate to be able to do this instead of being surrounded by suburbs that it can't tax.

Then they can create or keep that area as part of its extraterritorial jurisdiction. Sorry if someone beat me to this point but if Houston annexed its ETJ, then it would instantly become the third, if not second largest populated city in the country and larger than a state or two in land size. The map below shows why Houston is not boxed in by tons of edge cities and suburbs the way Dallas, for example, is.



Houston's ETJ extends into five counties and very nearly a sixth (Galveston) and seventh (Brazoria). Often times people will live in, locally, well known suburbs such as Cypress, NorthShore and Alief to name a few but have a Houston address. That's a way to keep taxes coming in and avoid being boxed in by up and coming suburbs without bringing them into the city itself.

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by Eightball

If San Antonio does this and gets a top 5 city population there should definitely be an asterisk involved.

Houston did it many moons ago and Los Angeles some time before that. It's the trend and unfortunately the masses won't keep up and just assume San Antonio is one of the biggest cities in the country (which it is and isn't).

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

Here's the link without the paywall.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/san-anto...lan-1419205551

Of course knowing this is Texas there probably will be more sprawl with this, but at the same time it doesn't have to mean there will be. I see a positive from this since it means it will place that territory under the authority of San Antonio. It is a good idea about future development guidelines and conservation. And when I say that, I mean well into the future - decades or even centuries. Look at the cities of Europe. They're huge. London is 671 square miles - it's larger than Houston. Of course, I'm not comparing the intensity of London's density with anything in America, just the authority to say what goes where and how and what to keep the same.




Even that doesn't work, though, because county sizes aren't the same. Counties in Texas average 1,000 square miles. Harris County where Houston is is 1,704 square miles - about 500 square miles bigger than Rhode Island. That still leaves a lot of land for far flung suburban development to be counted.

Anyway, I'm still a statistics geek, but I care very little about populations anymore. Back in "the day" when I first stumbled onto this website, I did care more about it. Population isn't everything, though, and I suspect that has nothing to do with this move either. I think it has everything to do with tax revenue.

London is really just an agglomeration of suburbs IIRC outside of the City of London itself, which is 1 square mile. But I think I get what you mean.

As for Harris County, believe me when I say there is still PLENTY of room for development, especially in the northwest where there is still farm land along SH 290 on the way to Waller County.

Originally Posted by JManc

Why? Most cities got to their current state by gobbling up their immediate surroundings and neighbors increasing populations, land area and tax bases. Texas' cities are just the latest to do it because the state is one of the last few to still allow it but I bet if others still allow it, big cities elsewhere would entertain the idea.

Besides, city proper populations no longer really mean anything, it's the metro figures and San Antonio is still small potatoes. They are decades from filling in the gap between them and Austin, their nearest big city neighbor and they have no significant suburbs of their own to speak of.

New Branfuls? San Marcos? And San Marcos is significant in that it has an increasingly more important and growing university. They will fill that gap in the coming decades and get more cross-commuter traffic.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by ThePhun1

Houston did it many moons ago and Los Angeles some time before that. It's the trend and unfortunately the masses won't keep up and just assume San Antonio is one of the biggest cities in the country (which it is and isn't).




London is really just an agglomeration of suburbs IIRC outside of the City of London itself, which is 1 square mile. But I think I get what you mean.

As for Harris County, believe me when I say there is still PLENTY of room for development, especially in the northwest where there is still farm land along SH 290 on the way to Waller County.



New Branfuls? San Marcos? And San Marcos is significant in that it has an increasingly more important and growing university. They will fill that gap in the coming decades and get more cross-commuter traffic.

New Braunfels? No way too small. San Marcos might but at ~50 or 60K people it has a long way to go before it links two million+ metro areas.

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by JManc

New Braunfels? No way too small. San Marcos might but at ~50 or 60K people it has a long way to go before it links two million+ metro areas.

But as I said with SM, it has an increasingly more important university and in time I see that area growing.

[Jdawgboy]

San Marcos is part of the Austin metropolitan area but I agree that it is also the connection point between the two metros. What I'm surprised about is the gap between San Marcos and New Braunfels hasn't really filled in much in the last 15 years. It amazes me at how much has changed between San Marcos and Austin. Conversely there is much less empty space between New Braunfels and San Antonio than there was 15 years ago. I'm not as sure about when the gap between New Braunfels and San Marcos will actually fill. It may be the very last stretch once the rest of the I-35 corridor is filled.

[KevinFromTexas]

^New Braunfels sprawls a lot, but San Marcos is more centralized and slightly more urban. They're even up-zoning with student housing, apartments and even some condos. It's probably one of the few towns in Texas of its size with midrise apartments planned.

[llamaorama]

From the census bureaus' perspective, what would it take to become an MSA?

Anyways my perception is that there is an indirect chain, where people live in New Braunfels and commute to San Antonio, or to San Marcos, and some students live in Austin and drive to San Marcos. And that there will probably be unbroken sprawl physically joining the two metros in the future. BUT that the two cities are kind of far apart for there to be a direct link. You'd go from one to another for some special sports,cultural, or dining experience but I would hate to wear out my car doing I-35 everyday.

Sort of LA and San Diego. There's got to be some overlap between far south OC and far north SD county suburbs, but the two cities themselves are decievingly far apart from another and it takes a while to drive between them.

[ThePhun1]

IIRC, Census Bureau statistics are based on counties and cross commuter traffic. And it's still tricky because somehow San Francisco and Oakland are not in the same metro as San Jose.

That said Austin and San Antonio are not like that...yet.

[Eightball]

Originally Posted by ThePhun1

Houston did it many moons ago and Los Angeles some time before that. It's the trend and unfortunately the masses won't keep up and just assume San Antonio is one of the biggest cities in the country (which it is and isn't)..

I just don't understand the comparison. Houston is without question both one of the largest cities in the country and among the largest metro areas. LA is obviously #2 in both city size and MSA. How is that similar to San Antonio

[arkitekte]

Originally Posted by Eightball

I just don't understand the comparison. Houston is without question both one of the largest cities in the country and among the largest metro areas. LA is obviously #2 in both city size and MSA. How is that similar to San Antonio

The comparison is how each city proper actually reached its population (through annexation, which wouldn't impact the metro size, but you know this), not necessarily metro size.

[Eightball]

Right but as other posters noted there is an expectation that city size is a reasonably accurate proxy for metro area size.

And what large city (other than maybe SF) has never expanded by annexation? I don't see what Houston and LA doing annexations in the past has to do with their city size being a somewhat accurate representation of their importance in the national economy.

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by Eightball

Right but as other posters noted there is an expectation that city size is a reasonably accurate proxy for metro area size.

And what large city (other than maybe SF) has never expanded by annexation? I don't see what Houston and LA doing annexations in the past has to do with their city size being a somewhat accurate representation of their importance in the national economy.

I'm saying that what San Antonio is doing to inflate their numbers, whatever the reason may be, is nothing new and that it took LA and Houston decades to start looking the part, to start actually feeling like and having the MSA numbers reflect their rank for population inside their respective city limits.

When LA became one of the 10 largest cities in the 1920 census, it didn't feel like the others size-wise and ditto for Houston in 1960, when it became the seventh largest and especially in the 80's when it passed Philadelphia to become the fourth largest. And as seen on the map above, Houston very much has the right to do what San Antonio is doing and probably even pass Los Angeles in population, not that it wouldn't happen without a major fight like in previous cases.